Strega - Andrew H. Vachss [60]
"He seems okay after that—like he just had a bad day or something. But a couple of weeks later, one of his father's friends comes over to the house. He has a Polaroid camera with him and he's taking pictures. When Scott comes downstairs, he sees the camera, and he goes rigid…like catatonic…he just freezes up. They take him upstairs and soon he's like okay again, but by then my friend figures something's really wrong and she takes him to a therapist.
"But he won't talk to the therapist. I mean, he won't talk about what's wrong. It's like he's himself most of the time, but something's really eating at him. He doesn't want to do things like he did before—he doesn't want to play, doesn't want to watch TV nothing. The poor little guy is so sad.
"Anyway, my friend brings him over. She figures…he just adores my little Mia maybe he'll play with her. But he doesn't want to do that either. And now Mia gets all upset too. 'Fix it, Mommy,' she says to me. What was I supposed to do? Mia…I had to fix it."
The redhead turns her face, gives me an absent–minded kiss like she's telling me "Don't move." She walks back around to the front of the bench and climbs into my lap—snuggles in to me like she's cold. Like I'm a piece of furniture. Her face is against my chest but I can still hear her when she talks.
"I tell my friend to stay in my house and I take Mia and we go out and buy a Polaroid. I come back to the house and I get this big hammer from the garage. I bring everything out to the patio and then I take Scott by the hand and bring him outside with me. I open the box and show him the camera and he starts to pull away from me. Then I take the hammer and pound that fucking camera until it's just a bunch of little parts all over the patio. I must have gone crazy for a minute…I'm screaming something at the camera I don't even know what. And little Scott…he comes over to me. I give him the hammer and he smashes the camera too. And then he starts to cry—like he's never going to stop. I hold him and Mia too—all together.
"Finally he stops. I ask him, 'Is it all okay now, baby?," and he says, 'Zia Peppina, they still have the picture!,' and he cries until I tell him I'll get the picture for him. I promise. him. I swear to him on my daughter. On Mia, I swear to him I'll get this picture for him.
"And then he stops. He smiles at me. The little guy's got heart for days—he knows that if I swear that, it's done—it's done. He has trust in me."
She was quiet against my chest. I reached in my pocket, took out a smoke for myself, and lit it. She pushed her face between my hand and my mouth, took a drag from my hand. Waited.
"You know what's in the picture?" I asked her.
"Yeah. I know," she said.
"Because he told you or?"
"I just know."
"You did something to find out, right?"
She nodded against my chest.
"What?" I asked her.
"He used to go to this day–care center. Out in Fresh Meadows. One day they took him someplace—he says out in the country—in the school–bus they use. There was a guy dressed in a clown suit and some other stuff. He can't tell me. He had to take his clothes off and do something—he won't tell me that either. And someone took pictures of him."
"Where was this place?" I asked her.
"I don't know!" she said, fighting not to start crying, biting her lower lip like a kid.
I patted her back in a careful rhythm, waiting until it matched her breathing. "What else did you find out?"
"A woman came there. An old woman, he said. She had two men with her. Big, scary men. One had a little bag—like a doctor's bag? With money in it. The old woman took the pictures and the clown got some of the money.
"And?" I prompted her.
"Scott couldn't tell me what the men looked like, but he saw the hands of the man who carried the little bag. There was a dark–blue mark on one of them. Scott drew it for me." She fumbled in